BREXIT? Am I just plain stupid?

As I see it, we signed up to a trading block but increasingly power has been centralised in Brussels. Yes I know our government took us in and now our government is taking us out.

We haven't lost our democratic rights, and the EU is no more of a bureaucratic mess than Whitehall, which is frequently unresponsive to the problems of the regions. Rather more so than the EU, which at least has policies to aid poorer regions across the whole of the EU including the UK.

Things are not helped by politicians forever putting forward silly arguments. Happened again on QT last night. The idea that you cannot negotiate unless you are prepared to walk away with no deal is nonsense in the situation we are in. Certainly, if you are going to a car showroom, of which there are many, you would take the view that if you didn't like the deal you would just walk out.

But we're not in that situation, and to suggest that threatening no deal is a useful bargaining position is ludicrous. The situation we are in is that we would be mad not to trade with the sizeable bunch of countries that are on our doorstep. And both sides have an interest in that trade, although both sides have reservations too. It is simply inconceivable that the best arrangement that can be achieved is the "no deal" scenario. It isn't even clear what it means. Talk of no deal is just peevish posturing.

That we have to compromise with our trading partners is simply a fact of life. Wherever we go in the world, nobody of any significance is going to roll over and do what we want. And whatever deals we do will be subject to international oversight. But we shouldn't ignore the fact that we can already trade with 60% of the world through EU deals, and the hostile USA accounts for another 20%. The remainder is mostly on the other side of the world and tied up in existing trading arrangements.

The only way we could have absolute "control" would be to have no external trade. That would be a very unpalatable situation.

So often we hear comments like yours Loopy, from Brexiteers. You talk as if all this was done to us by an outside force to our determent. It wasn't.

Our governments, voted in by us, and our MEPs, voted in by us have an equal - and some would say stronger voice in the decisions made by 28 countries. No one forced us to do anything the other 27 even gave us concessions.

It was not to our detriment. We have thrived while in the EU; before that we were 'the sick man of Europe".

No one dragged us in. We chose to join and our government; our representative, voted in by us, has had a democratic vote in all changes to the EU.

Getting out of the bureaucratic mess that is the eu was never going to be easy. And that is one reason why we should do it before we are caught forever in the spiders web and have lost our democratic rights forever.
We battle on.

Bluegal don’t be concerned if you don’t know what’s going on.I don’t Think anyone does at the moment. I have decided that as I can’t change anything, I will wait until the talks are over before even listening about brexit,as things change daily. My feelings for me are if I can’t change/have my say then I will wait and see what the result are. This will keep me happy.

Brexiteers refuse to see we are being led by a bunch of incompetent buffoons. Instead, they blame the EU for all our ills. As for a “brave new world is ours for the taking” . Where exactly is this “new world”we are going to be “taking”? Do these countries know we are going to “take” them?

As I knowno longer

Hollycat, I agree with Jen but I would say further that your post does not make sense to me.

You are not buying anything with your "£20 note". What you would be doing is going into the butchers and saying, "I believe I owe you £20 for things I have had I the past and not completed paying for. As I know longer want to go on with the same arrangements to pay that we agreed when I started shopping here I will clear this debt now so we can discuss a new arrangement" The butcher may look at his accounts - ones you don't seem to have bothered to keep - and tell you that you have missed out the fact that he has already had to pay for some things you have previously said you would want in the future. To cover his costs on this you actually need to pay a total of £25.

Of course, you could choose to only hand over £20. If you did such a thing I am sure that he would only sell anything to you in the future if your money was on the table before the transaction and he would probably overcharge you to get his £5 plus more back as he no longer has a relationship of trust with you - you destroyed it as far as he is concerned so even though it had been built up over 40 years he feels now he owes you nothing.

Having broken the original arrangement which gave you hard won advantages you may not be able to get such a good one in the future but, You may even have to go to other butchers whose produce it not as good and is more expensive.

It appears, you are choosing to do that so you can feel big and clever even if you are out of pocket because of it.

Poor little Brexit Bulldog; he seems to be loosing the plot in a bigger way than ever. He is now telling the EU not to politics ahead of profit. What the heck does he think Brexit itself does?

But we've already bought it. We agreed to pay for it years ago. They are just asking us for what we owe.

I've never thought of the EU as a butcher's shop, probably because I am vegan.

We are equals at the table. But there are 27 other equals at the same table, not just one.

Bloody hell, you sound like a pioneer. There's nothing left for us to conquer - unless you count unknown tribes in deepest wherever.
A brave new world out there! We took it all centuries ago.

If you go into a butchers shop presumably you will look at what's on offer, decide what you would like, whether it's fresh and whether it's economical. You rarely go into a shop waving a £20 note and wearing a blindfold and allow the butcher to decide what bit of offal he is prepared to give you. But the EU are asking us to do exactly that. We MUST, it seems, come up with some astronomical figure to give to them and they will graciously then decide what crumbs they will let us have. This is exactly what "buying a pig in a poke" means - buying something unseen. Who does that? This is not a negotiation, this is a mugging and must not be allowed. We are supposed to be equals at the table, we are not supplicants. To leave is GREAT. We need to be free. There is a brave new world out there, ours for the taking, and it is waiting for us.

Good link, Welshwife. With EU backing we have some chance of resisting the US's punitive actions. Neither the UK nor Canada can do that alone. It's a hostile world out there.

Found this article about the EU still helping UK's with trade

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/brexit-us-bombardier-trade-dispute-tarrif-eu-uk-leave-northern-ireland-c-series-jet-wings-wilbur-a8058386.html

ddraig needs to come to terms with the fact that the UK cannot simply refuse to make a payment to the EU, even if we were to attempt to walk away from all negotiations. It has been suggested that the issue could be resolved by the International Court of Justice in the Hague. But informed estimates of the net UK liability (after accounting for assets etc) is somewhere between 25 and 65 billion euros. If the UK were to refuse to accept a ruling by the court, that would place us outside the international legal structures that are accepted by most countries. It isn't too clear how easy it would then be to do deals with anyone, except perhaps the US (which sees us as plunder).

ddraig has demonstrated an degree of brexitextreemism that we have not heard before on GN, but is sadly prevelant in other quarters.

Why do people who support Brexit not take on board FACTS they are told -and can easily check for themselves - but still keep spouting absolute tosh?

ddraig123, are you maybe the Russian troll? Can you really imagine any organisation offering better terms to non-members than to members? You seem to think the EU should do that, otherwise it is "punishing" us.

We are not making a payment in exchange for a trade deal. We are expected to pay up on the commitments we have been making while members of the EU. If we're reneging on them, how can we expect to do a deal on trade?

Estimates of the liabilities do take into account assets, you are mistaken to suppose otherwise.

We will not get a beneficial trade deal with the USA - how would we when the USA is far larger and more powerful than we are? Trump wants more jobs for Americans, he is only interested in a deal that gives the USA the biggest benefit. Look at the Bombardier affair for proof of just how serious are the risks for us.

It's hard to see any basis for the rest of your claims.

ddraig, that's a very long post full of rubbish.
The EU are doing what they are supposed to do; the UK are not.
Considering that the Brexiteers are in charge in the UK camp, they are not doing very well, are they?
They lie, they obfuscate, they bully, they have no figures, are unprepared, not willing to compromise.
David Davis had no new offer tonight. He's just hoping that the EU will do his work for him.
They don't want us to leave, they never wanted us to leave, 48% of the UK didn't want us to leave. Why should it be made easy for the Brexiteers?

'If people had any idea what was coming in Europe economically, financially, politically, militarily, terrorism wise, immigration wise and otherwise the Brexiteers would have triumphed with over 90% of the vote'. Can you tell me exactly what is going to happen, then, as you must have some sort of inside information that the rest of us don't have. With regards China, I thought the EU had negotiated trade deals with them on our behalf?

The EU are not negotiating in good faith. Their Chief Negotiator, Barnier apparently does not even have the authority from the 27 to give us what we want. They are not negotiating based on what is mutually beneficial economically and financially etc., because their strategy is about Punishment, Revenge and Deterrent. Punishing us for daring to even have a referendum in the first place, getting revenge for having the audacity to vote leave and deterrent to make sure we get a worse deal after Brexit than before to stop any other countries from even thinking of leaving too, as they are absolutely terrified that the domino effect of others leaving for a better deal would collapse the whole European Project like the dodgily built house of cards that it is!

We went wrong on day 1 by agreeing to discuss a 'divorce' bill before we even got to talks on a trade deal. The two are inextricably linked and should be being dealt with together. Why would we even agree to pay anything let alone the £20b the PM offered without knowing what trade deal we would get in return? We also let the Remainers get away with Project Fear 2 by calling the choices Hard or Soft Brexit after the vote to leave. Soft Brexit sounds nice and easy and cuddly, but is not Brexit at all, while hard sounds difficult, problematic and dangerous, but in reality just means the proper Brexit that most of us voted for. But as few seem to understand Brexit, the Remainers hope that people will go for what sounds like the easier, safer option. They have delayed and procrastinated, whilst shamefully saying that they respect the result of the referendum and just want the best possible deal for Britain, when these wolves in sheep's clothing want to delay things as much as possible in the hope of a second referendum. However they know that the British people won't wear one yet, as it is really too soon to just ignore our majority wishes and just carry on in their usual arrogant manner as they would like. So they actually would like the EU to offer us a really appalling deal, so they could say we told you so and have Parliament vote against the deal and then they can call for a second referendum to reverse the Brexit vote.

We should offer them NOTHING and see them come crawling back for the £20b we already offered, as without our contributions the net contributors (of which we are one) would have to pay more and the net beneficiaries would lose out too, getting less or even becoming net contributors. Legally they have no case for us paying them anything in fact I would argue that as net contributors for many years we are due a refund of billions, plus a share of the ECB and other assets like property. But if they asked nicely I might just agree to waive this for an excellent trade deal!

If not tell them we are Unilaterally Declaring Independence in 6 months say, when we will revert to WTO rules or any other mutually beneficial sweet-heart deals that we can agree before then. We should lower Corporation Tax to 10% or what ever is necessary to encourage many firms to relocate here from Europe and to pay their taxes here. We should negotiate trade deal with America and China etc.,. signing Memorandums of Understanding on Trade before the leave date and signing them on day one after leaving. If we do this what can they do? Kick us out?! Try to get the ECJ to fine us?! A court we will have already stated that we no longer recognise?!

If people had any idea what was coming in Europe economically, financially, politically, militarily, terrorism wise, immigration wise and otherwise the Brexiteers would have triumphed with over 90% of the vote. Britain may experience short or even medium term pain with Brexit, but ultimately we will be masters of our own fate, well placed to be an oasis of calm in a sea of absolute chaos, thriving, prosperous and a proud independent, sovereign nation once again.

Worth repeating, though.

Morgana we must have been typing at the same time as I seem to have repeated your comments. Sorry

This has been very interesting to read, more so because it has been quite civilised, probably because Russia have not registered any bots here. I always welcome views from either side, but I do get frustrated when it is still inaccuracies that are being quoted which surely people should have researched by now. The EU is not unelected, thats why we vote for MEPs. The fact that people like Farage hardly ever turned up to represent UK is hardly the EUs fault. The EU is actually more democratically elected than our own parliament. The unelected beaurocrats that are frequently mentioned are the same as our civil servants. We never lost sovereignty and we are able to make our own laws. I am still waiting to hear examples of bad EU law as the majority seem to be for rights, conditions etc for the ordinary people, we now have clean beaches etc as big corporate businesses cannot dump their polution anywhere they want etc etc
We can vote against any EU law which UK regularly does, and to be fair we have way more concessions than most other EU countries. We could always control migration, but our government decided not to. Under EU rules, unless you are self supporting, you have to return to your country of origin if you have not found work within 3 months. As we now know, no additiinal funding for NHS, Turkey joining was an outright lie and we are leaving the EU at the same time as the EU are tackling tax avoidance offshore. Now who has financed brexit........ A group of business men who do not pay EU tax. The PM has regular meetings with the likes of Murdoch, Dacre etc. Now who is in charge. Much easier to corrupt a single government, than a group of 28 governments. The EU is not perfect, however change can be made from within, but for 70 years of peace it certainly was worth it. And don't forget Russia, who wants to divide Europe. Give me the EU over being controlled by Murdoch or Putin.
Now will someone give me facts, bad laws, infact anything that can convince me I am wrong. Been waiting a long time for someone to do this. But with everything that I have said, there can be no price better than the peace we have enjoyed.

Having read through the last few pages which I did not have time to look through earlier, I now feel thoroughly depressed! Depressed because there are still some people who think that Brexit will provide a land of milk and honey; depressed because there are still so many lies being banded about; depressed because there is likely to be one hell of a cliff edge if/when we leave without a deal (TBH think there might well be a cliff edge even if we leave with a deal); depressed because so many of those areas who voted Leave (some cited on earlier posts) are going to be in one hell of a mess when we leave the EU. And who will be blamed for all this mess? The media? The government? Nigel Farage? The Russians? The 'foreigners'? How are we going to avoid a complete collapse/riots?
Incidentally, I am still awaiting an explanation of what Britain post Brexit will look like! Still no takers of my challenge...

Yes, there was a mention of it in parliament today, asking if they could have a debate on whether it was legal or not.

I have just read an article about the 15 MPs who were featured on the Telegraph front page, and 9 of them are lawyers. I am not surprised.